


deus prodigium

by mrhiddles



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Bonding, Historical References, Jinn, M/M, Vampires, Werewolves, author does not owe you a comfortable experience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-05-09 03:48:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14708507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrhiddles/pseuds/mrhiddles
Summary: Vampire AU.Loki is jarl and Thor's brother is dead. He comes with promises of being able to cross the great desert and Loki, Loki wants only one thing. Thor's subjugation.





	1. sitis

**Author's Note:**

> I found a WIP from 2013 and added on to it. I don't think it'll be too long of a story but I felt like writing some bloody, Viking era AU. And I've never done a proper vampire AU. Let me know what you think!

_“We must sometimes, all of us, do terrible things.”_

\--

It’s like dragging the tip of his tongue through old Greek wine. Always irrevocably bitter no matter how many years the blood sits unscented, untasted, uncorked. And the thirst. Infinitely arid, nothing sating it, always there, always cloying, always picking at him in annoying reminder that he needs _more_.

The amphora sits dark and fat, the centerpiece of a raucous gathering of his brothers and sisters. Some still lie sprawled about, necks bare and tongues lolling, happy in their dreams. He wants to tell them to go _home_ , but it’s nearly light and he can’t very well do that. They’ve had their fun and drank their fill, and he is left to dispose of the mess of bodies. Perhaps he will throw them in the street so the children will have a meal.

The amphora is a glare before him, so he deigns to paw at the thing. As if the simple press of his palm is enough to _do_ to _not do_. Finally, he unstoppers the damned thing and wets his gums, feels it sting all the way down his throat.

He’s had this blood for near a millennium, and still it is the bitterest tang that has graced the flesh of his dry tongue yet.

Thor lies prostrate and clawed and marked with too many bites to count. Much of them the doing of the slim dark-haired boy lying on the floor below him. If remembering correctly, the boy is a newcomer, some scant seventy years old or somewhere around that. Why would _Thor_ let a newcomer do such a thing?

He makes note of each, his sight a blade dipped in honey, dragging over the golden son’s skin like steel.

Unbreakable, but bent in clever ways.

He’s known Thor for just over two centuries, has met him only a handful of times. He’s brash, too loud, sometimes too quiet, and he knows he loves the way sunlight reflects off white stone.

But he is Loki and so he only watches, waiting.

\--

Loki knows Thor is old. Older than himself, to hold the stare he aims at so many of the elders. To meet them—Tyr, Frey, Nord, even Heimdall—it takes more than courage or stupidity. It takes respect.

Loki avoids speaking with them at any cost. Rather, he prefers to send a messenger now and again should he need anything for his cove, which is once every century or so. He takes care of his and his alone, and they let him be, for the most part.

But the elders arrived a week ago. They walk about like living gods of carnage and it reminds him of his first days in the darkness. Tyr is the worst, scarred chest strapped in worn leather, knives at one hip, a broadsword slung over his back. His eyes are a soft gold, peering at those who dare stare at him. His stump of a wrist is angry and twisted at the end and Loki wonders why he still keeps that blasted wolf around. Loki hopes they leave soon.

But Thor. Thor, who laughs with Heimdall in the great hall, who toes at the beams of light that crawl slow across the dirt when dawn hits like a child in need of a whipping, Thor, who is the son of Odin. Odin who cast Loki out long ago. Before the first whisper of Christ was out of the mouth of the _others_ who thought power was merely a crown and staff.

Thor, who has come _here_ , to the outskirts of society. And has stayed here, for nearly a month as opposed to the usual night or two. Apart from his kin, apart from the blooded. Loki has seen men pull blocks of stone into shapes too large to fathom, has seen women bring their babes to the wood in reverence to a cruel horned god, faceless and shifting. He has seen the paintings on cave walls, and known the memories hidden there, when he was… _before_. But before all that, he was cold, and alone.

And he knows, _knows_ , Odin is older still. Old as time.

The thought has him shivering, so he pulls his furs tighter about himself.

Thor is the son of an ancient. So, why is Thor here?

\--

“You’re brooding,” Sif says beside him. Her hand is too warm on his chest though he refuses the urge to shove it away.

Her thigh hitches higher over his. She eyes his cock. “You’re not usually worn out this soon,” she tells him.

Loki does shove her away at that and sits up, ignoring her huff of annoyance. She stretches instead, lying with her arms behind her head. “You’re thinking too much.”

“Go.”

“Just invite him to your bed if you’re so bloody curious,” she says archly. “Or I will, if you are a coward.”

Loki glares at her and watches as she grabs up her robes and fur. Her lovely rear would be a treasure if not for her mouth, and he tells her as much.

“And your cock is utterly devastated by the glumness of its owner. The sun is cresting, try not to singe your bollocks.”

“Go, you wretched girl,” he groans, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards despite himself.

When he’s alone again, he thinks it might not be too terrible to just _talk_ to him. Ask him why he’s here. If he’s here to stay.

After all, this village was _his_ , and Thor was merely staying as a guest as far as he was concerned.

\--

Loki finds out why Thor is here not a week out from his conversation with Sif.

They’re in the main hall and the elders, they surround Thor where he stands in front of Loki, inclining his head.

Loki notices a fresh bite at the nape of his neck and fights the urge to wrinkle his nose.

“Jarl,” Thor begins, “I apologize for not meeting with you sooner. I was awaiting the arrival of these fine men before approaching your high seat.” He bows lower still and Loki feels his knuckles go tight on the arms of said seat. How _dare_ he patronize him. “I have a request.”

“Do you?”

Thor blinks and nods, looking confused at Loki’s tone. He’s probably never had anyone talk back to him a day in his life, he thinks.

“What is your request, Odinson?” Loki sighs, not missing the way Thor looks at the ground at the name.

“My brother Balder is dead. I am in need of a hunting party to find the killer.”

Loki leans forward, intrigued. “I was not aware you had a brother.” Besides me, he thinks.

“Of Odin’s blood, just the one,” Thor says, nodding.

So he doesn’t know, then.

“Where will you take this hunting party?” Loki asks him. His tone must not be the best for Tyr is sending him a withering look. Loki smirks back and him.

“To the desert.”

The room erupts, as it should. Loki stands, trying to hide his shaking hand as he points.

“That’s suicide!”

“I know it.”

Loki lowers his arm, glowers down at him. Thor could demand it of him, deserves it, as is his right. Could enlist his entire people, take his horses, his few ships, his _seat_ , anything he wanted. He is the son of a god, a god Loki has not seen in three millennia. Loki steps fast down the few stairs to level his gaze with Thor’s.

Tyr brings a knife to his throat, the air a cutting whip across his cheek. He feels the point of iron at his neck and leans into it, smelling his own blood before feeling the trickle of it down beneath his tunic.

“You’re mad,” Loki whispers.

Thor’s smile is soft and knowing and it makes Loki want to rub it off his face.

“And you know a way across.”

“I do,” Thor concedes, finally.

The room swells once more with surprise.

“How,” Loki breathes. “The sun would obliterate you and any you bring.”

“I will tell you in confidence, only.”

They hold each other’s stare long enough that Loki feels the blood dry where it’s spilled.

Thor must see something in his eyes then, for he inclines his head once more, just enough so Loki knows he’s not demanding more than Loki’s attention. Loki is still in control. He must be.

He must.

Loki grips the blade at his throat, swiftly pulling it further into him. His people watch in dismay, he can smell it on them, their ill-placed concern. Thor watches as blood gushes fresh down his throat and Loki breathes hard and fast, knowing Thor will do this.

“First, I need your loyalty.”

Thor blinks at him, and Loki sees in his bright blue eyes something old, and dark.

Thor nods and soon enough Loki feels the press of lips against his neck, the sweet release of Thor sinking a steady bite around the already flowing wound.

Thor imbibes, and his hand goes to the other side of Loki’s neck. And it’s sharp, and it’s pain, and it’s _good_.

The elders, Tyr especially, are unsettled. It is the most euphoric feeling of all.


	2. copiam

Thor maintains the proud tilt of his chin as he follows behind Loki, entering through a draped fur nailed above a narrow entrance. The room is simple for someone who calls themselves _Jarl_. That Thor might judge him of poor taste is the least of his concerns as he watches the blond’s head swivel about in curiosity. Tyr stands just outside, knowing his place is, at least while here, not above Loki’s own.

It gives him some comfort.

Loki takes a moment longer to watch his not-brother. Loki’s blood is dried in thick rivulets all down his chin, his throat. Loki swallows and jerks his head away, to the amphora sitting fat and still mostly full on his table.

He unstoppers it with a careless flick of his index and thumb and proffers it to his guest. The rich liquid sloshes pleasantly in its clay trap and Thor nods, accepting it for what it is.

“You taste like this,” Thor tells him once he’s swallowed a hefty gulp.

Loki snatches it back from him without asking, taking a swig of his own.

“Cicero rather thought so too,” he remarked idly, feeling the rough edges of the lip of the amphora with the pads of his fingers before setting it back down. His knuckles ache.

Thor’s brow wrinkles in something Loki might name confusion, but then it seems as if a thought occurs to him, nodding finally in recognition.

“How long?” he asks Loki, his voice taking on the tone of someone wanting very badly to know a secret.

Loki shakes his head, no. He won’t answer that question, not yet.

“The desert. How do I cross it?” he asks instead, voice firm.

Thor snorts. “How do _I_ cross, you mean?”

“Need I remind you of whose blood soaks your gums,” Loki huffs, sneering.

Thor drops his head and Loki can hear the beat of his heart. A steady rhythm, solid, stable, and not ashamed in the least.

Thor delays in answering by striding to Loki’s bed and standing over it like a beast. His shoulders span so wide, Loki wonders why he does not simply tilt, fall over onto his nose. Thor licks his lips.

Without turning, he says, “Wolf blood.”

Loki rolls his eyes, not bothering to refrain from sighing loudly.

“Drink the blood of a shifter and you can parade in the light of the sun for a full day. Keep a shifter tied to your horse as you cross, you have a—”

“Supply,” Loki mutters, finishing the thought. “Indefinite ability to endure daylight.”

Thor turns and he’s smiling. Loki frowns at him.

Loki gestures at him with a sharp jab of his hand. “And you came here, thinking I’d believe something so trite?”

“Your blood tells me you have some honor,” Thor comments. “Though how much is debatable, from all I’ve heard.”

Loki scowls, his mouth twisted into something ugly. _Impossible, impossible, it does not go both ways._

“And what have you heard about me?”

Thor shrugs off the fur strapped to his shoulders and moves to settle at the edge of Loki’s bedding. It dips with his weight and Loki manages not to distract himself with the sight of his thighs parting invitingly.

“That you’re a liar and a thief. You love your tricks. You’re old, older than most in our world. My father mentioned you once, when I was young. You’re something of a mystery to me,” Thor murmurs at the end.

“All true. Though I find it difficult to imagine Odin had any reason to speak of _me_.”

_Bastard King, vile deceiver, wolf god, fanged god, evil raven, one-eyed beheader—_

Thor shrugs and leans back, eyes sliding to Loki’s like there’s promise there. That same dark… _thing_ inside him, and yes, for Loki that may not be the most eloquent thought he’s ever spared, but just the sight of Thor on his bed, sitting as he is, the muscles in his forearms dancing as he digs rough knuckles into the furs underneath—

It has Loki’s mouth dry and his pulse racing, cock throbbing almost painfully the longer Thor stares at him, _into_ him. Something wild crosses his mind, a terrible, estranged thing. Something that’s singing inside him, on his tongue, in the roots of his teeth, maybe Thor can—

Thor smiles like he can hear all what Loki is thinking and more, and it’s like Thor’s blood is what was consumed by Loki, and not the other way around. Loki’s knees go weak and so he steadies himself where he is, not bothering with the way Thor switches his gaze down, down, to where he knows he’s hard against the fabrics draped at his hips.

His face flushes hot and Loki blinks, shuts his eyes, hoping he’s not going insane. Hopes it’s—

“Come here,” Thor demands quietly and Loki swallows hard.

“ _You_ come to _me_ ,” Loki orders him.

Thor laughs deep then and rises, stepping into Loki’s space in a matter of seconds.

Loki meets his bright eyes and grimaces, dodging the way Thor ducks for his mouth to fasten long fingers in golden locks, yanking his head back in a tight grip. A rush of held air fans Loki’s face and it smells of copper and old wine.

“What wolves do we use?”

Thor’s face falls a bit but still he answers. Compelled by Loki’s blood in him or not, Loki isn’t sure. “There is a camp some ways off. A few days’ ride, and sufficient cover.”

“Then we shall leave tomorrow night,” Loki breathes. Thor’s lips tilt upward but Loki digs his nails into scalp, loving the way Thor gasps small and sharp. “But only you, I, and a few others—of _my_ choosing,” he enunciates. “I won’t have that lapdog nipping at my heels while we’re hunting his favorite pet.”

From beyond the draped furs at the entrance, Loki can smell the rankle of Tyr’s wolf, Fenrir as he splits a bone to chew on.

“Dreadful beasts, the lot of them.”

“They’re rather beautiful I think,” Thor growls at him. “But they will serve our purpose should we have need of them.”

Loki fights to keeps his mouth an even line as Thor’s hands grab his hips painfully tight, dragging him close. He feels small in his grasp and it is unusual, wonders if this is how Sif must feel when he does the same.

But never this… _hard_ , he thinks, shifting uncomfortably. Thor only holds him closer still.

“How do you know they will obey? I’ve never known a wolf to do a blasted thing aside from eat, fuck, and revel in bloodsport.”

Thor grins that same old, wicked grin and Loki recognizes Odin in it.

“Ah, not so different than you or I, then,” Thor admonishes, laughter lifting his voice close to joy.

Loki opens his mouth to correct his blithe statement, but Thor pushes past his hold on his hair and kisses him, crashing their mouths together. Loki tastes the relic of his own blood and he surges forward, nipping Thor’s tongue but careful not to puncture the flesh.

Thor drags him bodily to the bed, where he nearly tears Loki’s clothes from his body, raking eager nails down Loki’s pale thighs, shoving them apart before licking Loki down and moaning at the simple pleasure of having a full cock in his throat.

“Gods above, you ancient fool!” Loki swears at his ceiling, digging his hands in Thor’s hair and tugging his braids loose, making a mess of him.

Loki wonders if it is ancient blood that has him behaving this way, delighted and annoyed and bewildered in chaotic turns. Panicked at the sight of a clever grin that seems odd on Thor’s distinctive face.

Loki wonders if it is ancient blood that has him worrying if he can hear the thoughts of those around him. Sense the feelings of others.

Loki wonders because _he_ can do the very same. And he has never known another of Odin’s blood, aside from himself.

And Thor. Thor who was never close enough to truly learn if his theory was true. Never close enough to learn he _had_ a theory about it at all.

But as he bucks his hips and pulls Thor’s hair hard enough he expects it might rip clean out, he thinks _your fingers, your fingers your—_

And Thor obliges with a hum, snaking one hand beneath Loki and placing one finger teasingly where he needs it most right now, pushing just enough to promise what he wants and then, and then—

Thor obliges him, again and again.

Loki thinks of wolves when he spills down Thor’s throat, knows Thor can probably hear what he is thinking.

But now Thor is sighing happily as he crawls above him, ridding himself of the last of his own clothes before collapsing beside Loki in a tired heap. It may be the middle of the night, but Thor is breathing deeply, an arm slung about his waist, soundly lost to dreams.

The blood at his neck grows itchy all at once and he scratches lazily at it, feeling it flake off beneath his nails.

Loki thinks of wolves and theories he’ll need to continue testing.


	3. veteris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be finishing this up in a few days!
> 
> For clarification: Loki met Odin somewhere between the end of the Pleistocene Epoch and the beginning of the Neolithic era. (Our bois were cold cavemen (and they were cavemen.)) Don't come at me with specific anthropology science, my brain isn't big enough for that.

They leave for the wolf camp at nightfall the following night. A risk, as much as any. One Loki is not fond of taking, Sif even less so. She’s been grousing about their path for hours.

“It is nearly dawn, must we continue into the sun?” she complains, hand a tight fist over her scabbard. “You’ll see us all burn.”

“If you do not shut up soon, then I will be happy to,” Loki calls back to her with a smile. He hears her answering groan and shouted _fuck you and your empty ballsack_ and Loki must try very hard indeed not to let Thor witness him laugh. Sif always had been his favorite.

Thor is a constant presence beside him as they travel. If it were not for the ancient blood running thick in his veins, Loki would have seen fit to cast him to a worthier place among their line. Two back, behind Sif and further still, if he felt so inclined.

But he finds the frequent stare of Thor’s focused gaze at his profile enticing rather than altogether annoying. He can’t help but think of the way Thor took him down his throat so willfully, more than pleased to do so.

Thor snorts from his place and Loki chances a look.

The man is looking sidelong at him, thinking he’s clever, surely. Loki trots his horse forward to push Thor’s from the path, only enough to tease and is rewarded with a booming laugh.

Thor rights his horse and clicks his tongue, a useless action for one who didn’t know how best to control their own steed.

“’Tis not useless, Lord,” Thor tells him, a seamless answer to his unvoiced scolding.

“I knew it. You _can_ hear me, same as I can hear others if I want.”

“If you want?”

Loki nods. “But you. You’ve not made yourself known, though you have no trouble knowing my mind. A permission not given, I assure you.”

“I tasted your blood,” Thor tells him. “Is that not enough?”

Loki hums. “No it is not. I assume it is because of your father’s blood.”

Thor’s horse stutters somewhat, and Loki applies the barest pressure with his heels to urge his own mare faster. Thor catches up to him.

“What do you know of my father?”

“He’s not told you?”

Thor’s handsome face twists in a light frown, eyes dark despite the creeping dawn almost upon them. They will have to camp soon.

“He mentioned you only once, as I said.”

“When was that?” Loki hedges. He licks his lips as he meets Thor’s eyes, and is pleased beyond reason when Thor tracks the movement.

“Before I sucked your cock near clean off your body, Loki.”

Loki’s smirk falls as Thor musters up one of his own. A rancid sight.

“Ah. I must have forgotten, then.”

“Hmm,” Thor hums, knowing. “I’ll strive to achieve a more memorable presentation the next time, then.”

“Next time, you say?”

“I’m beginning to think it is not your memory, but rather your ears that have the problem,” Thor says, laughing.

Loki must fight not to roll his eyes and smile, feeling too fond for a fool of a man who doubled as Odin’s only blood son. Loki knows he is. Thor is too much alike to the ancient beast to not be of his loins directly.

“I am,” Thor confirms. “My mother was…my mother was of a kind such that it allowed me life.”

Loki knows there is a dark story there, hidden in his tone. “You’ve aged.”

“Aye.”

“Huh.”

“So. What know you of my father?”

Loki glances up at the sky, seeing the sun inch over the farthest trees. He holds a hand up, fingers stretched flat and Sif commands the men break off for rest. Thor leads them into the thickest gathering of trees. He was not wrong about the adequate shade here.

“Enough.”

“I’ll find out whether you want me to or not. You’re not very good at hiding what you’re thinking.”

Loki dismounts his horse, gathering the reins to secure her to a thick branch. He glowers back at Thor.

“Now you are displeased with me,” Thor informs him. “Direly so, in fact. You’re thinking of the merit of ripping my neck from my shoulders. You’d have to deal with Odin then, I’m afraid.”

Loki sniffs. There is pine in the air, and fertile soil. “I must not be so bad, as you still know nothing of what I’m holding back from you.”

Thor inclines his head, thoughtful. “This is true.”

They set up camp quickly, tents with tight bindings so to close out any wayward light, though Loki sees the closest it gets is three feet away from thee tent closest to the path. They will be fine, as Thor said they would be.

“You truly wish to know? It will be painful for you to hear,” he tells Thor some time later. The sun is higher overhead, and the warmth permeates their shade despite their best attempts. Loki feels stuffy and so divests himself to lie prostrate and shirtless on his bedroll.

Thor shifts from where he lies on his own bedroll. Though his eyes had closed, Loki knows he hadn’t drifted once since stopping. The beat of his heart, the race of his breath as steady as ever.

“I’ve not seen my father for many years. I have my theories.”

“But you will not let me hear them.”

“No,” Thor says, calm. And Loki looks over to him. Thor’s chin is down, the pleasant flesh gathered at his neck as he blinks down at his folded hands across his belly.

Loki wonders how such a being can exist, caught between life and death, such as Thor was. His mother must have been rare indeed, and older than even Odin.

“I shall answer another question. It might shed some light so that you may stop pestering me about my history with Odin Raven-Beast, Wolf-King.”

Thor raises his eyebrows.

“I am older than these lands. I remember when there was ice, and great shadows cast across the land. The snows lasted…” Loki blinks, remembering himself. “They lasted longer than I care to recall. But I remember fire too, and others. Many others. Death. I remember language when it first came about, a clever idea, really. And now writing, like those silly monks so love. But there always was and always will be bloodshed, and our kind against theirs, so nothing’s changed I suppose. Though the weather is better. I met Odin a long time ago. A very long time ago. I don’t believe there is even a number for it.”

Thor stares and stares at him, drinking in his words. For a flash, Loki can hear him, a cacophony of emotion, a blasting swell like the sea illuminating the innermost reaches of his mind—and it’s a gift, to be allowed to see Thor’s wonderings just then. Loki’s heart races and he can’t help the gasp that leaves him.

Thor lets out a shaky breath, a match to his own state. He pushes up from his bedroll to arrive near Loki’s, hands heavy at his bare shoulders. He sinks down until they are lying belly to belly, Loki pulled toward Thor’s searching heat. They kiss and kiss, a lightheaded rush sweeping over him.

I am your oldest brother, Loki thinks and feels Thor hard where he shifts ever closer against him. Loki squeezes him through his breeches, swallowing down the moan he offers up.

“Is that enough of secrets for you,” he whispers to him and Thor clings tighter.


	4. mortem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I increased the number of chapters.

Sif wrinkles her nose and bares her teeth when Loki catches her eye across their camp when he blinks awake the next night. He’s glad to see their small troop is still whole, unsinged and unburnt from the long hours of the day spent hidden away beneath heavy canvas tents. He is half nude with Thor’s arm slung about his chest, and when he looks down he can see Thor’s brilliantly naked rear pale in the dark. The furs lie discarded, and Loki can still taste his brother’s spend at the back of his throat. The revels before sleep were short and fervent, but there all the same. He cannot remember the last time he’d desired to have another spill down his throat. To give, rather than take.

Loki grins towards Sif and slaps Thor’s arse to make his point and she laughs.

“About time,” she mouths over to him, smirking as she turns to ready her horse.

Thor is glaring at him through sleepily narrowed eyes when Loki looks back. Glowing pricks of blue light tucked soundly beneath a wrinkled brow as he focuses. An altogether fond sight, an unused one. Unexpected too, given the person.

There is a flicker of something soft and loving that washes over Loki as Thor blinks at him, bringing his hand up to touch Loki’s cheek. Then it is gone in another moment, lost, hidden behind the curious mask of Thor’s visage across from him.

How is it he is already considering tasting Thor’s blood? It is ridiculous, is what it is.

Loki instead decides to make use of their newfound liberties and kiss Thor the rest of the way awake, lingering long enough to have Thor clutching at his flanks. Let Odin know his first child now beds his favorite son, the heir to an old and rotten empire.

The thought has something dark flare to life in his breast and he sighs into Thor’s mouth with it.

Loki feels himself pulled bodily atop Thor and he delights in rolling his hips down, chasing the pleasant line of Thor’s hardening cock jutting into his stomach. 

“When we return, I wish to take you.”

“Hm,” Thor hums, happy and light. “Take me where?”

Loki huffs and sits up. “Buffoon.”

Thor smiles when Loki pulls back. He sits up, straightening himself where he straddles Thor beneath him, running an efficient sweep through his hair before standing. He offers a hand to Thor to haul him to his feet, and Thor takes it, as natural as he pleases.

The sigh that greets the back of Loki’s neck, hot over his flesh, is of a length. Thor frowns against his flesh, and Loki can tell in the beat of hesitation there what Thor wants—if only for a moment.

Loki waits. If Thor should dare break the skin, bite him truly of his own will, without the aid of a previous wound—self-inflicted as the first time he’d ever tasted Loki’s blood just days before…what would that make them? Two brothers, one a descendant of an ancient, the other turned by the same, and then…Loki is not sure. That Thor could take what he wanted from Loki, without Loki’s permission—

The thought sets his blood aflame, hot all the way through him, a rakish tingle littering his skin.

He waits.

Thor just breathes, some tension running through him as he hovers there, over Loki’s skin. His other hand comes up close to grip hard at the other side of Loki’s neck, holding him firm, unable to escape.

The power Thor wields is unmistakable. It is a terror just then, and Loki knows he’ll never forget it. It is not fear that floods him then, but the overwhelming anticipation of the unknown. He has not felt such a thing for a thousand thousand years.

But then Thor swallows and kisses him there instead.

He smiles, and lets Loki go after a brief nuzzle of his nose to Loki’s temple.

Loki feels claimed, despite having no reason to be. No blood spilt. No vocal claim. No blood binding.

And yet Loki knows he will be Thor’s for the rest of his days. And Thor his.

As Thor goes about the business of readying for their continued journey to the wolves, Loki knows it is a feeling he doesn’t not like.

A wondering for another time.

\--

It is another two full nights of riding and days of sleeping huddled beneath the shade of trees and tents, rumpled bedrolls, the over-thick swell of Thor’s arm tight about his ribs before Thor announces they are but a hill away.

“They reside in an old fortress. A forgotten castle.”

“Who forgets a castle?” Loki chides.

“The local village people steal the stones for well crafting and iron melting. The ones that manage to return.” Thor rolls his massive shoulders and tosses his long hair to the side. “It is best to approach them openly. I’ve dealt with this pack before.”

Loki feels his nostrils flare, an unfortunately uncontrollable habit he’d been plagued with since youth. What he remembers of it. “You’ve dealt with them directly?”

“Of course.”

“And you did not think to state that before I agreed to go along with your ill-conceived plan?”

Thor frowns, a pretty sight that settles smooth over his features. “Need I remind you of the reward I’ve promised.”

“Hardly a reward for all the trouble to go to, to get it.” He presses close, squaring his posture. Thor is ever unbothered, rather even looks amused. Loki is keenly aware of the tension that’s settled over their troop. A cacophony of racing hearts, save for theirs—and Sif’s. Always the level headed one of the bunch. “I knew I should not have listened to you.”

Thor’s lips curl upward and Loki knows Thor is as unbothered by that statement as any before. A moment passes and then Loki feels the brush of Thor’s fingers against his, where their arms lie hidden over bent knees where they sit around a rock, a torn bit of canvas and charcoal serving as their strategy. Sif scribbles away.

“It’s best we go in from the side,” she states, oblivious to both them and the tension of the group. A mutter rises but she quells it quickly. “Lest ye all want to leap over the gates?” She snorts, like it’s a funny idea.

“We go in the front. Let me speak with them.”

“And who will you speak to? That would so readily let us drain a pup for our journey?”

“There is a woman who is their alpha. Angrboda. She is older than most shifters, and remembers the days we hunted side by side.”

Loki is not expecting that. “I’ve not heard that name in centuries. How is she still alive?”

Thor shrugs. “You can ask her tonight.”

And with that Thor gets to his feet and saunters off, altogether a menace save for the pleased smile soft across his lips.

Loki sighs and follows him.

\--

Though he is amused by the recklessness Thor displays as he strolls along towards the entrance of the shifter’s castle, he is not unaware of how Thor is taking the lead and effectively undermining Loki’s status. Again.

Loki’s fingers twitch, eager to yank Thor back by the scruff of his corded neck.

Thor turns before they reach the gates, a curve to his mouth.

“You yet strive to diminish me,” Loki mutters, plastering a look of goodwill across his features despite the numerous howls that ascend around them. They’ve been scented, their presence made known by the beasts loping about just inside.

The first creak of the gates yawning open breaks the night’s calm. The howls grow, an ominous echo cresting ever upwards until it cuts off altogether.

Loki lays eyes on the leader come to greet them.

She looks much the same. Thin, hollowed dark eyes and darker hair, stringy and longer than Loki’s ever seen it. It hangs in a wild halo around her shoulders as she stalks toward them.

“Thor.” She squints at Loki, and she snuffs the air, nostrils wide and mouth parted. Loki tastes something sour on her exhale. “Loki?”

“Pleasure.”

“You owe me a head.”

“And a heart or three, actually. Have you forgotten?”

She closes her eyes for a long moment and Loki can hear the stut-stutter of her heartbeat, a loose rattle behind her ribs.

“How have you been?”

The look she gives him tells him it’s a cruel thing to ask. She doesn’t answer.

“I assume you’ve payment for whatever reason you’re back here for?” she asks Thor.

Thor nods and she turns on her heel. They follow her through the camp.

They are a wild bunch, Loki finds. Same as any other wolf-camp he’s ever come across, few as he strives for them to remain. He despises the smell, molted wet fur and meat long past decent for the waking world, bad blood and sickness too—yes that was what he scented before. That sour tang never meant anything good.

They are watched intensely as they weave through the straw-covered streets. The dirt is darker here, and the roofs thatched.

Fire was not such a scare for the living, he thinks bitterly. It would be easy to light their roofs on fire, watch them all burn.

Thor clicks his tongue. “Calm, Loki.”

“I’m getting tired of that, you know.”

“Perhaps I do not want you in my head.”

Loki frowns. “I’ve not tried keeping you from mine. I would assume it’s expected, given our—”

Hm, he is not sure what it is. What to call it.

Thor eyes him. “Our?”

“Us,” Loki finally manages.

“Us.”

“Yes, us.”

Thor’s lips twist. He huffs a laugh. “You wish to taste my blood, then?”

Loki refuses to meet his eye.

Thor leans close. “You would be so humble as to drink from my flesh?” he rumbles and the sound chases the ice from his bones. “You would lower yourself so?”

Loki licks his lips, not thinking. Thor grins and Loki almost, _almost_ shoves his face away.

Instead he feels inclined to gift a truth. A second one.

“Yes.”

Thor quiets, surprised. Loki watches him as he rubs a hand over his beard in thought.

“Alright.”

Loki is ashamed to say he feels joy at the word.

Angrboda stops them short, fist tight over the iron claw of a massive door.

“We’re here.”

\--

“State your business,” Angrboda demands, sounding tired as soon as she’s sat in what Loki assumes is her throne.

An uncomplicated wooden chair, layered in furs. She spreads her thighs and a young boy sidles up to her with a bowl of raw meat, bloody and fresher than what Loki smelled before. She grabs a fistful of the stuff and the boy hurries away, back to the shadows. Loki cannot smell him, and it is odd.

She tears into it and Loki sees the blood run over her chin. She licks her fingers, a show of…something. Though Loki isn’t certain of what.

“I wish to cross the desert.”

Angrboda is unphased. She does not look up once from her meal.

“So soon after the last time?”

“The journey ran too long. I have planned better this time and know what it will take to reach the wastes.”

“Where they’ve taken your brother’s body is a sure path to death. A promise, even.”

Thor does not blink. “Then I am ready.”

“Why are you so fixated on saving your pretty brother’s reputation? He was a fool, unfit for our world. It is a good thing he is dead.”

“Lady,” Loki says, feeling the need to stop this conversation rise unbidden. “If you please—”

“I am Jarl, not Lady.”

“Much has changed since I saw you last.”

She snorts. “Truth. Rare from your tongue.”

“Balder was a fool in many regards,” Thor says, voice relaxed. “But he is my father’s son and I must not leave his soul unavenged.”

“Vengeance is folly. It leads to species dying out.”

Loki sees Thor frown for the first time.

“If you are unhappy,” Angrboda finally says, looking at them each in turn. “Then speak plainly.”

“It will take three shifter’s. It is a week’s ride across the sands.”

“They say the Sa’alin roam the sands. I’ve seen one.” Angrboda laughs and Loki feels a chill run through him, unexpected. “Their coats remind me of your—”

“Jarl,” Thor says, and this time his voice is hard. “Three wolves.”

“I will need payment.”

Thor inclines his head and walks forward. Loki wonders what it is he is doing. Thor withdraws a blade from his robes and immediately Loki is wary, feeling unsure of how an attack on the leader of the shifter’s camp would be tolerated. He suspects poorly.

Thor walks between Angrboda’s spread legs, brings the blade to his arm and cuts deep. Blood pours onto the wood boards of the old floor, the same that creak as she lunges forward to drink from the wound.

Loki is speechless.

Blasphemy.

Tainted.

Wrong.

An insult, for Thor’s blood is meant for _him_.

Only him!

Loki bites his tongue hard to keep from speaking, this was Thor’s work to be done. He needed to see it through, needed to know what it took to walk in the light.

When Angrboda is done, Thor lets his arm vanish once more beneath his robes, opposite hand clutched to it. It will heal by morning, Loki knows. But he cannot help the rush of fury that is spilling through him in vicious waves.

Angrboda takes in a gasp so euphoric Loki half suspects her underthings to be wet. She blinks at them, gasping for breath, hands clenched tight in turns on the arms of her would-be throne.

“You’ll have your wolves by dawn,” she breathes. “Stay until tomorrow, feast with us. I will command no one to sleep.”

Thor merely inclines his head. He brings out a bloodied hand and grabs Loki’s arm to drag him away.

“Say nothing,” Thor murmurs towards him.

Loki, pathetic and pride injured, obeys.

\--

A shifter is sent to bring the others. Thor and Loki are given spare quarters to rest for the approaching daylight. If Loki was not so distracted by his anger, he would find more unease in nesting in the beds of wolves.

Thor cages him in as soon as the door is locked behind them. His tongue finds Loki’s, effectively stealing any words he might have found to throttle him with.

Loki melts beneath him against his better judgment, feeling alight all over again. It’s the same each time Thor touches him, wringing out pleasure and supplication. Loki had intended for Thor to be on his knees from the first time he’d entered his village—now it was Loki clinging to Thor. Loki, smelling the thick blood clinging sick to his sleeve, his palm, wiping messily across Loki’s face as Thor insists on cradling him with gentle touches.

Loki needs not gentleness and care, he needs Thor’s cock in him, splitting him open. He needs Thor’s blood on his lips, across his teeth, painted over his skin. He needs Thor ruined beneath him and in turn to ruin him utterly. It is a wildness filling him, has been for some time, and he hates Thor as much as he loves him in that moment.

A small, broken moan rushes light across his lips and Loki knows Thor’s heard him. And damn him for it.

He whispers Thor’s name, meaning for rage to fill the word, but hears instead only pleading come from his own mouth.

Thor breaks off, and when Loki meets his bright eyes, they are dark and afraid in a way he didn’t know Thor could be.

He swallows and Loki hears the bob of his throat.

They stand there, breathing hard for long moments.

“You do this, we are bonded always. For all time, Loki.” He swallows again. “There will be no escaping each other.”

Loki can’t help but laugh. “Not so much different than how I’m feeling now.”

Thor’s smile is everything he’s ever needed to see. It is the sun, it is light itself and Loki knows he will never dare to be apart from Thor again.

Thor leans forward until his forehead is on Loki’s shoulder, neck pale and smooth and close enough Loki can taste the scent from his skin.

Loki plants a kiss before he bites, and considers it a third gift, if nothing else.


	5. solis

“You meant it?” Thor asks him, his voice a whisper.

Loki looks away from his imploring eyes. Too much there, staring at him. He sees a number of things in Thor’s eyes; hope, desire, pain. He’s not sure about the pain aspect, but it’s there, steady as anything he’s yet seen.

He put it there.

“Does it bother you?”

“That you love me or that you were Odin’s first…child?”

Loki remains silent. Best to appear nonchalant about the entire situation, he knows, for if he appears bothered about the admission himself, then perhaps Thor would have reason to listen harder than Loki wants. He is not ready for deeper truths. It simply is. Was. Will be.

“Whichever bothers you more.”

Thor laughs lightly. “Neither bother me. That Odin turned you before any other—it is merely a piece of history I’ve learned. It’s stunning, having lived so long.”

“You’re not so young yourself.”

The golden spread of Thor’s shoulders roll in a lazy shrug. “No, I’m not. But neither was I turned. It is different. You have the history of the world living within you.”

_And though we share the same blood, ‘tis I who will die first._

Thor reaches across to wipe at the tears gathering at his wide eyes. The tears come as a surprise to Loki most of all.

“You’re letting me hear you, now.”

Thor smiles.

“When you first came to my village, I thought you were far older,” Loki tells him. “The way you carried yourself, such a smug bastard.”

“Smug?” Thor laughs, the open shock of it plain in his voice. “Did I threaten your position, Lord?”

It’s meant to be teasing, but Loki feels himself prickle at it all the same. Hard to forget millennia of banishment to the outskirts, and—

“Hard to believe Odin might not send his heir to oust me from my final possessions. My position as Jarl being one of them.”

“And Sif the next?”

“Hm. I see she’s been wagging her tongue in places she is unwanted.”

Thor smooths a thumb over his cheek at the wave of something Loki can only name as jealousy passing through him. He feels sick and would rather not meet Thor’s eyes. But Thor is insistent.

“I am the one who should be jealous.”

His brows raise of their own volition. “You’ve not bedded her already?”

“No, though she’s tried.” His amusement rankles Loki.

“She’s insolent.”

“She is lively!”

“And you’ve been bitten by many others. I remember the long nights you had when you first arrived. I’d watch you—all of you, in the aftermath. Covered in bites.”

Thor laughs outright, arms going tight around Loki to jostle him. Loki flings a thigh up to brace himself, halfheartedly shoving at Thor’s chest. He is ever talented in souring his own moods.

“You speak as if you’re smitten with me, Loki.”

“I do not.”

“That I was bitten by another bothers you greatly. Far more than any other thing. I saw your face tonight.”

“Angrboda does not deserve your blood.”

“She and I have a longstanding arrangement.”

Thor’s tone is one to leave no room for contradiction. He speaks as if he’s a king and Loki reviles him. Loud and hot and brash, a brand in his throat.

“She is a _wolf_. That is how she’s lived all these centuries. Odin’s blood.”

Thor sighs and tightens his hold around his waist. Loki tests the bind as well as he’s able, and finds little give. He realizes, perhaps for the first time, how strong Thor can be if he truly wished. He could tear Loki’s head from his shoulders, he’s sure.

“I won’t,” Thor whispers. “I’d never. You are too precious to me. I would hope an old blood-deal would not sever something so important.”

Loki frowns. But Thor’s blood running through him has done the trick. He can feel what Thor feels now, existing in a careful place tucked safe within him. All he’s felt from Thor since he drank has been boundless, transcendent—

“Love. You foolish creature.”

“I do not lie to you, Loki.”

“I know it.” He allows the kiss pressed to his jaw. He braces himself for what he wants to ask next, though he suspects Thor must already know. It’s in the shadow that darkens his eyes, blowing them wide.

“Who was your mother?”

The smile falls away, the ghost of it lingering in the lines about Thor’s handsome lips and eyes. He sighs again and brings up Loki’s hands to rub between his own. He splays each finger, analyzing every knuckle and pore before moving to the next. A habit borne of idleness.

“She was from a land across the desert. She was unlike us. Or the shifters. She was other. I loved her very much. Odin killed her.”

Loki feels Thor’s anguish, hidden so soundly behind his tired gaze.

“Why did he kill her?”

“An old blood feud is what I’ve gathered over the years. Between their families. She was a jinn though, so perhaps that had something to do with it. I’m sure you remember his way with others.”

“Conquer or vanquish.” Thor nods. “Aye, then he’s not changed a spit.”

“That he hasn’t.”

Thor will not cease staring at Loki’s hands, so Loki whispers an apology to him as he leans forward. Indulges in a moment of comfort in arms tightly wrapped about each other’s shoulders, Loki reveling in Thor’s shudders against him.

It is power, yes, but of a gentler breed.

He allows Thor the benefit of a rare forgiveness, for Angrboda.

Thor will only ever receive one.

\--

He’s not drunk from the blood of an ancient since Odin.

Thor’s blood is sweeter.

Kinder.

Odin’s was sour, and consuming. A bitterness that spread over the bones and the blood, a poison more rancid than any war the old man sought to wage. Back then it was tribes. Now it is the monks and their books. Loki knows the next will be bloodier than the last.

And on and on Odin will go throughout all time.

Loki knows it.

Thor might too. He hasn’t been able to parse that much out yet.

Thor rolls Loki onto his back, hands slipping down to pull apart his thighs where he works him until he is hard—and forgetful of his dark thoughts—and rocking forward to meet his hand. Thor slips inside him and it seems to last an eternity. And it riles him, oh it riles the blood thrumming through him. He bares his teeth, a plea and Thor simply lowers his neck for Loki to drink his fill while they sink far past any shadow Loki’s known.

Loki keeps drinking, a bounty poured willingly into him long after they’ve found their pleasure, and it is heady indeed.

Thor murmurs love into the edge of his hair and still, Loki drinks.

Thor is intoxicating.

Thor is endless.

Thor is a clever cross between mortal and ancient and Loki will never let him go.

He will die before he does.

\--

“You did not answer me.”

Thor breathes and Loki lets him hear, if only for an instant.”

“No. Why would it bother me that you love me, Loki?”

“Perhaps because I am your elder brother. Maybe for the simple reason it is me, and not some other love-happy, sap-tongued, poem-singer?”

_That I am Loki and have long been banished from such wonderful tidings for that fact alone._

Thor nuzzles his cheek, his temple, burying his face in Loki’s hair as he was so fond of doing. He hums and hums again and Loki can still taste his blood in the air, the dried edges of the mark on his neck.

“I found you, Loki,” Thor breathes, and it sends affirmation soaring high through him. “As you found me.”

Thor holds him close and yawns.

“How that could ever be a bother is beyond me.”

\--

Angrboda summons them the next night, a red rope bright in her clenched fist as she brings forth the three that will serve their purpose across the long desert.

“For your journey. Bleed them once every four hours, and you’ll have plenty for ten days. Delay your path and you will die in the sun.”

She smiles as she says it, a witchy thing too tight at the ends. Loki has always disliked her. Thor’s blood has not helped her visage in any way either, as far as he can tell.

Thor clears his throat.

Sif walks forward to take the shifters, who bow their heads. There is a brand upon each of their necks, a prisoner’s mark. Loki wonders if their blood is rancid as well, a gift from their hostess.

“I’ll ready the horses,” Sif informs them as she leads them away. They go easily, and Loki wonders how long it took for a shifter to so willfully follow one of their kind.

“There’s no fight left in them,” Loki murmurs to Thor as they’re left to themselves. “She broke them.”

The revel of the night is just beginning, Angrboda’s pack a cheering crowd as they drink and fight and tempt one another to writhe in the shadows of the hall.

Thor frowns, glancing around in that observant, sad way that oft clung to him.

“It is best we leave sooner than later. They will not notice we’ve gone until morning besides.”

Loki nods, leading the way as they weave through those gathered.

A boy bumps him and Loki twists to see. He is not unlike the boy that brought Angrboda her bowl of meat, but he is different, yes.

Loki cannot smell this one either. No scent clings to his skin. Even under the heavy mix of fur and wet and blood and spill, the wine and the ale—he cannot scent the boy. And there is something else too—something worse—

He realizes the same moment Thor’s hand finds his arm.

The boy has no heartbeat.

Thor grips his elbow and they go on.

\--

“Leave us,” Loki commands.

It is almost dawn and they are at the edge of the wastes. Some hundred yards ahead lies the desert they must cross to find Balder’s killer.

Thor is an anxious bounce beside him, fidgeting his hands, adjusting his boots and bracers, the pin at his breast that holds his cape across him.

Loki thinks, _peace_ , and Thor stills somewhat.

Sif is the worst of them. Arguing and shouting and jabbing his chest as he explains why it must only be him and Thor to journey there.

“If I die in the wastes, you must lead them,” he finally tells her. She grows angrier. “You must inherit our people if I do not return, you blasted girl!”

“I don’t like this.” She crosses her arms. “Not at all. This was a folly journey always!”

“Just think of being able to kick Tyr on his arse once you get back. If I am not back in a fortnight then you can do just that. We will move faster alone besides.”

It is finally Thor’s quiet, pleading words begging her forgiveness that does it. She relents only when Loki embraces her after, feeling less rotten about it than he thought he might.

“Come back to me,” she whispers to him, sniffing hard. She slaps his cheek lightly and turns to rally the others to her command, as she so naturally always does. Loki sees relief in their eyes, glad to have no part in the consuming of wolf blood, the risk of the sun hot on their necks.

Loki has denied them all a sure death. And if he is to die, let it be beside Thor with no one to witness. His alone. An inheritance breathed unto him by Odin, in all ways.

Odin gave him eternal life. Odin gave him Thor.

What better way to leave than that?

\--

They mount their horses, two wolves tied to Loki’s and one to Thor’s, a train following them as they head out side by side.

Loki has not tasted a shifter in long years. Their blood is strange, reedy. Like sifting grass through teeth. He witnesses Thor’s small grimace as he swallows it down and is pleased to know it is not only himself.

Thor takes the first steps into the light, the same confidence in him as Loki first saw months past when he spied Thor toeing along the shadows back in the village. He’d thought it recklessness then. Now he knows it was eagerness to return to this place. A wanting of what they could not always have.

It was a cruel thing, to give Thor life, he thinks. That Odin and Thor’s mother were both creatures of shadow. Thor has only ever known one way to experience the sun on his face and it was this; a wolf tied to his flank, its blood sour on the tongue.

Loki may hardly remember what it was like before, before all of this, but he remembers the simple pleasure of walking into the light unbarred form fear or shame.

Odin gave him that too.

“It’s a waste to think of him now,” Thor tells him. He stands fully bathed in sunlight now, his features turned warm and soft. “Come.”

Loki takes a deep breath, and steps forward.

It is warm, but does not burn. He stares down at his skin, too pale and shining now that he is in the brightest spot he’s been in for millennia. Thor takes his hand to kiss his palm and Loki cannot help the grin that overtakes him.

“Thank you,” he says. He is not sure why.


	6. victa

The days pass long and hot. They sleep short hours, in turns. It is best to keep an eye on the shifters lest they suddenly catch wind they have wills of their own. Best one of them be awake to fight them off should they need to.

The blood is harder and harder to take down each time. Loki nearly forgoes it but Thor simply seals their mouths together and forces him to take it.

“You will not die.”

The wolves look on, dark eyes bright in the sun, watching them before blinking, empty, back to the sand beneath their tired legs.

They rest little. They trade stories. Loki desperately wants to know more of Odin and Thor’s estrangement. He has never been certain what happened between them.

“You are fond of Rome,” Thor comments after one bout of laughter as Loki recounts a Roman court.

“They were fond of me. Thought I was magic for many a year.” He hums. “They called me Janus.”

Thor snorts at that.

“I was celebrated, it is true!”

Thor gives him a shake of his head. “It’s not that. My father told me something similar. I did not know he spoke of you.”

So Odin spoke of him more than the once, even if Thor did not know it.

And stranger still, Odin had been in Rome?

“He was.” Thor wipes at his brow. “Though I’m not sure for how long.”

Loki stares out into the sands. “I know I nearly left after Cicero was gone.”

“Odin spoke of him as well. Why didn’t you?”

“Oh, it was just getting fun. How could I leave after that?”

“You truly are incorrigible.”

“Who do you think proffered the idea to pin his head and hands to the Forum?”

Thor looks at him so wily then Loki almost jumps from his horse.

“You terrible thing,” Thor scolds, but he’s smirking as he says it.

“My time there did find its ruin, that is true as anything else. I did leave. I never knew Odin had been there to walk the same courts I did.”

“Odin keeps many secrets.”

“He does.”

“When did you leave?”

Loki remembers the gardens, and the pillars so white in the moonlight.

“After they started calling me God’s Omen. The ones who were to come did not take kindly to a man called Janus who walked only in shadow.”

Thor nods, jaw tight.

\--

There is a shadow on the dunes.

A man of familiar bulk, shoulders wide with a long spear.

Loki sees it.

He’s sure of it.

But then the sun shifts and it’s gone.

\--

When he goes to ask Thor if he noticed the shadow, he finds Thor nodding off, slumping forward on his steed.

Loki kicks his heels, his mare petering to a stop as Loki hops off to grab Thor and steady him as he blinks away.

“We rest for now.”

Thor nods, glancing around, confused. He lets Loki ease him from his horse.

\--

Thor’s horse dies on the fifth day. Thor cries and Loki holds him.

They tie the shifters in a line to the back of Loki’s mare and they set off again. Thor is a steady weight at his back, a protection and a balm.

\--

“Did you see that?” Thor asks, his words jostling him back to waking.

Loki blinks the sleep from his eyes. They are still two days out from reaching the end of the wastes. That is what Thor told him.

“See what?”

“There,” comes Thor’s low voice, a rumble of caution. At the top of the dune he means Loki sees nothing. But he suspects it is not the last time either of them will see what the sands want them to.

“Who was she?” Thor wonders.

Loki had seen Odin.

He has his guesses for who Thor saw, but none fit to voice to the air.

\--

They lose two shifters within five hours. Loki knows for he counts the tick of the winds on the sand. It is a tricky thing, but Thor says it is the sun’s shade he is really keeping track of. And maybe he was right.

“Bled dry,” the third wolf comments dryly and Loki is surprised. It is the first any of them had spoken since Angrboda handed them over.

“Bold of you,” Loki tells him.

“I will die here,” the man says. “What difference does it make?”

“Not much,” Thor confirms.

\--

“One day more,” Thor promises to him that night. He wipes his mouth of the excess blood to press it to Loki’s lips. He licks Thor’s offered fingers clean while the wolf watches. “One day more and we can find new wolves to take when we cross back over.”

Loki nods.

“What will we find?”

“My mother’s lands. I know the man I seek is tall, and broad shouldered. I know he will have gone as far away from me as possible.”

“Is he of our kind?”

“I’m not sure.”

Loki balks at that. “How do you not know?”

“He called me _monster_. He painted a circle about my brother, with his blood. It was horrid, and not anything I’ve seen done by one of us. Have you ever known anyone to do such a thing?”

“That was not a wolf or a hunter, no,” Loki replies, recalling all bloodied scenes he’d observed throughout his life. “But the wolves are less than they were. And the hunters died out centuries ago.”

Something occurs to him then.

He whips his head around to survey the dunes around them.

Thor notices his wild eyes, his panicked watching.

“What is it? Who do you see?”

Odin is there.

Odin is on the topmost dune, his one eye golden and shining, hair a white wind about his head. He is chaos standing, spear aimed high, and then Loki is shouting, pulling the reins to draw his mare up, up.

The spear rushes past him, and he gasps, feeling pain sear through him like fire.

They topple, and he is near crushed underneath his horse, but Thor catches his fall better than Loki. He grabs the mare by the mane and hauls her side, letting her fall to the side just aside from them.

Loki rips at his leather and tunics, baring his skin to the heat of the sky in gasping breaths.

Blood.

There is blood.

“What happened!” Thor roars, tossing his head to the wind, eyeing the dunes surrounding them. “What did this?”

“Your mother—” he rushes. “Your mother, she was a jinn? A Si’lat like Angrboda said?”

Thor does not answer him. Loki fists a hand in his long hair and pulls him back down. Their eyes lock and Thor understands.

“Yes,” Thor says, voice hard.

“And she spoke of yet more in these sands. They are everywhere here.”

“I have been seeing ghosts for days,” Thor tells him. “I had not—I did not believe.”

“I see Odin, everywhere, all the time,” Loki gasps. “He was there. He threw Gungnir! He has killed me.”

“This will not kill you. It has hardly pierced you,” Thor says now that he’s looking at it with some semblance of calm.

“It went straight through me, Thor! It sailed through my heart. I saw it. I _felt_ it.”

And there is pain, deep within him. Something has changed.

“Something is wrong,” Thor growls, eyeing him.

“Your mother—did Odin drink from her? To have you? Was a bond made?”

Thor’s brow wrinkles. “I am not sure. I’ve never known another like me. I always thought they had.”

A shadow walker’s blood within Odin—

Thor hears him without speaking. And all for the better too, for Loki isn’t sure he has the words.

“Odin is here?” Thor asks, halfway to believing.

“Are you sure it was a stranger who killed your brother?” Loki asks him, details sliding into place alongside one another, taught and snug, feeling too right not to make sense.

“How?”

“He must have known. Tyr came to meet you at the village. Tyr was always beloved by your father. I had thought it strange for the bastard to follow you. And his beast—” Loki spits, sitting up with difficulty. “He always was fond of wolves.”

They turn in tandem to the shifter. The shifter who’s sat so obediently until he knew he would die.

The shifter opens his mouth to speak, but his eyes roll to the back of his head. He convulses even as Thor rushes to grab him. He’s dead before he hits the ground.

Thor tears open his shirt, and there on his chest is a wound to match Loki’s.

Shifters had not the healing they did. Loki runs his fingers over the already-healing wound and feels something shake loose within him.

Fear.

\--

They go on foot. It is nearing dawn again, and Loki is unsure how long they will manage with the drying blood of a dead wolf. He hopes long enough to find a shaded building in whatever village sits at the edge of the wastes.

Loki catches Thor staring at him as they stomp through the sands. He knows he is looking worse with every hour.

His skin has gone grey at the edges. His hands are the first, and so he balls them at his sides.

“Ignore it. I need to feed on a human, that’s all.”

They walk and walk and twice more Loki spies Odin lingering too long on dunes far away. But he lets them pass.

Thor yells when they see a village and Loki nearly falls to his knees in relief.

The village spans for miles, Loki can hardly see the end of it. Their buildings are white, with gold tops twisted into intricately carved points. He’s never seen the likes of it anywhere before.

They’ve made it.

They leave the wolf behind them.

\--

They feast for long hours, and Loki flourishes at the feeling of new blood flowing through him. He feels his wits return to him and can sense Thor’s pleasure at the same. They feast through the night, and Loki can feel exhaustion gripping him as dawn nears. It’s good to not have that rancid wolf blood in them any longer.

The grey remains but that will fade in time, he’s sure.

“Something has occurred to me,” Loki says when he’s sat down for a rest. They’ve claimed the small home at the farthest edge, hoping to draw as little attention as possible.

“What is that?”

“Angrboda’s boys. They were dead.”

Thor nods. “They were.”

“How is that possible? Even we have a heartbeat when we come back. The blood we take in must go somewhere. They had no beating hearts.”

Thor shifts, looking uncomfortable.

“When I was a boy, centuries old, Odin went to the wolves. He made a deal with them.”

Loki listens.

“I was sent to maintain that deal. I’ve done it ever since. Share my blood with Angrboda and she will raid our people only rarely. Prolonged life for less of our kind slaughtered. A fair trade for her.”

“Nothing is as fair as your blood,” Loki scoffs. It’s far too much to say, but if Thor already knows how Loki feels about him, what is one more embarrassing thing?

Thor smiles at him and Loki waves him off.

“Odin has found many creatures in his time. He’s taken to finding new ones when he can. He enjoys it. The boys were an experiment. But he found them revolting, so he sent them to aid Angrboda. But though he reviled them, he did not want them destroyed if he ever found a use.”

“Wolves do not hunger for the dead, so the boys are not in peril among her kind. Who were they?”

“They were sick. When Odin bit them, they turned into…whatever they are. It only happens to the sick. They are dead, but they yet live.”

Loki nods.

There is something more Thor is not telling him, even his emotions have formed a wall Loki cannot see around.

“Was Balder sick?”

Thor’s throat works, jaw clenching.

He does not answer.

“Yes.”

Loki feels cold spread over him. He feels ill.

When they turn, he already knows who he will see.

\--

“Odin.”

It’s Thor who says it. And Loki wonders how many centuries it took for Odin to earn that tone from his son.

“You’ve…changed,” Loki mutters, startled by how true a statement it is.

Odin is thinner than he was, but still broad in the shoulders. His wrists are all bone beneath wiry skin, and his beard is lank where it hangs wild from his chin. His eye is a constant shine, and Loki wonders at it.

“You’ve come from the shadows. You’ve taken in too much blood from the others.”

It’s a simple truth. Odin is changed from too much blood from other creatures. How many has he found? Consumed? Destroyed?

“I did it for knowledge.”

Thor stands and strides to him.

“You’re a sick, old, _man_.” He spits on the floor. “Leave.”

“Don’t you wish to know what I did with Balder?”

Thor frowns.

Loki asks for him, “What did you do with him?”

“He fell ill. You remember. He was sick, child.” Odin reaches to palm Thor’s cheek. “I knew how to fix it. The ritual was a fluke. I did not know. But now I do.”

His hand lingers and Loki sees the claws his nails have become.

Thor opens his mouth but Odin digs his fingers in, piercing his face.

Loki lunges forward to stop him but Odin’s spear is called forth, forming a shining line in his hand as he tosses Loki to the wall.

He throws the speak and pins Loki through the shoulder, sticking him like an insect. He squirms and fights but it will not budge.

He looks on, desperate, as Thor fights to be free of his father’s hold. But Odin presses harder, Thor’s roar of pain nothing compared to the dread Loki feels.

Odin rips Thor’s eye free to slip it behind his teeth. Thor’s blood hits the air and Loki fights harder to be free of the prison his grand spear makes.

It budges and he could cry.

Thor clutches his face, gasping.

Another inch moves free as Loki struggles.

Thor strikes at his father but Odin catches his wrist in one gnarled hand.

“You too will learn what it costs to attain knowledge.”

Thor lunges once more but Odin takes him by the throat.

Loki manages another inch free and screams, again and again, pushing forward past the pain.

“Yes, you will learn,” Odin says again, but this time he looks at Loki.

Odin never meant Thor. He was never speaking to his son.

He was speaking to Loki.

He’s always been speaking to Loki.

Odin gave him life.

Odin banished him to his small village on the outskirts of their world, to be forgotten and lost.

Odin gave him Thor.

Odin, who grips his blood heir by the throat and hauls him toward the door, the edges rimmed with bright light.

Odin gave his son a dead brother, and a mission to cross the desert.

Loki reaches for Thor.

Odin gave his children each other, and in his arrogance would rip them apart, for something so trite as _knowledge_.

Loki snarls at him, helpless as Odin lays a hand against the door.

_No, no, no, no, no—_

Something washes over him.

He meets Thor’s gaze—one eye bright, the other spilling blood freely. Thor, who’s gone still, accepting his fate.

Loki hears him a final time. He’s sobbing before he understands that he is. All he can hear is Thor.

“You’ll learn from this,” Odin tells Loki. “We are meant for the same path, you and I.”

He opens the door and throws Thor into the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finalem.


End file.
